Monday, July 6, 2009

If you heard the phrase "secure social networking for girls", would your curiosity be peaked? Mine was. I personally LOVE Facebook. Twitter is kind of cool too. Myspace was very appealing to me when it first came out even though it's lost it's flavor quite a bit (for me). But, I'm an adult. I'm not sure I'd want my tween girls on there though.

Did you know that 25% of 8-15 year olds have strangers as friends on their social networking page and 20% of those admit to meeting a stranger they encountered online?! Just this week alone I received 2 random friend requests on Facebook. Umm, no thanks! Way too many crazies out there.

To address the huge online safety concern facing our youth, gaming and entertainment leader, Senario, has created the first-ever secure socially networking world specifically for girls ages 8-12. My Secret Circle is a new plug-‘n-play product that allows girlfriends to hang out online, chat, share pictures and play games—all with mom’s approval.

By purchasing online access keys (USB keys) featuring proprietary technology with embedded browsers and unique ID codes, only friends can connect on My Secret Circle by exchanging private codes. Best of all, it’s invisible to the online world, so the child is not exposed to ads and strangers that are present on most major social networking sites.

Basically how it works is you buy the program, which comes in the form of a flash drive, and each person has their own secret "code" for the My Secret Circle. After generating your code, you print the code out on a small piece of paper and place it in a tiny capsule called a "charm". Then, you exchange the charm with another My Secret Circle user in person. And that's where it differs from "big kid" social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. In order to share your MSC profile with another MSC user, you have to exchange charms in person, which is supposed to eliminate the predatory aspect that sometimes comes with social networking sites.

It has all the fun features of other social networking sites like sharing pics, notes, interests, etc. You can even buy a headset that allows you to talk to your friends, voice-over-internet-style, just like Skype!

Other key features of My Secret Circle include All-About-Me profile pages with a Diva Designer avatar tool, an online journal that can be kept private or public for friends to read, instant messaging, games and an extensive photo feature in which girls can upload photos, add text and décor and even create slideshows.

My Secret Circle access keys can be purchased individually($19,.99) or in a B.F.F. (best friend forever) Pack ($29.99), which includes two online access keys, to shared among friends or siblings. What a perfect birthday gift idea!

One lucky reader is going to receive an idividual My Secret Circle Pack. To ENTER please follow these simple instructions:

US & Canadian Residents Only

Contest will run from Monday, July 6 through Sunday, July 12. Winner will be chosen via random.org and will be posted on Monday, July 13.

Earn extra entries by following, subscribing, blog listing or blogging about this contest.

**If you are interested in joining the Modern Mama writing team, please send at email to modernmamadiana(at)hotmail.com for details. We'd love to hear from you. :)

110 comments:

WOW!! That is really cool!!! Yeah, you never know these days with all the crazies!!! That would be a great gift for a girl!! Myspace has definitely lost all of its fun for me too but I do love facebook!! HA HA

This is a fabulous idea! I sent it as a suggestion for my dear friend who just moved from here to TX, her daughter is having a rough adjustment and misses her friends here soooo much. They are totally tweens and would LOVE this. And yeah-myspace is so last year! LOL!

I don’t want to through a wrench into your fun but flash drives have been known to carry self-propagating worms. They lurk unseen on USB drives and come to life when the flash drive is inserted into your pc / mac. It then downloads a code that connects else ware on the net and stays in touch with it’s creator, sending all data from your computer and can even make it possible for the creator to manipulate your settings and take control of your computer. The Department of Defense has banned the use of USB drives and they are being phased out by the corporate world. On a lighter note, children (as do adults) misplace, lose and have items stolen all the time. Children also fall into and out of friendships often.

Wow! That is awesome!! I have three daughters, 15, 12 and 5, and I would LOVE for the 12 year old to have something like this. She is on facebook now and I have noticed her friending people she doesn't know. Scary!

Visiting from SITS! I have a tween & a teen and I love The Secret Circle program. My teen has a Bebo Page, and I can't stand it! She has right at 100 friends and she CLAIMS they all go to school with her! (yeah right!) She does go to an Arts Magnet school grades 6-12 so it's a possibility but, I'd be more comfotable with something like this!

We NEED this at my house. My seven year old is getting to that age soon....it's pretty hairy. It's totally uncharted territory for us. I think this invention is pretty darned brilliant. Thanks for having a giveaway. Please enter me! jgrossmanesq@yahoo.com

What a great idea!!! My boys are little but I worry about the time when they do start getting on line and chatting and stuff, and who they would be chatting too. {although I don't think my boys will be in to trading charms...}

What a fun site! I've had a great time browsing around and will keep doing so!

My 10yo would absolutely love the Secret Circle...if I wasn't so old-fashioned and would actually let her do it. ;^) Plus, not sure how well it would work in MX. Still, I'll be recommending it to some of my friends in the States.

Very scary! My 6-year-old already likes to be on the computer, but we haven't gotten there.

I wonder if there is anything that interacts with these sites to protect our kids better or if we just need to guide them better about what NOT to do. Seems like the kids like to all do the same things and be on the same sites, and that is a powerful force in and of itself.

It's about time that the manufacture companies have found an ideal way for our young girls to hang out in cyber space and allowing us moms to feel safe and secure knowing that no crazies can get to them. What a breath of fresh air ! I'm definetely buying this product for my two daughters ! Thanks for sharing about it. I'm also going to repost your indepth post in my blog with a link back to you. Thanks so much.

Happy Featured Blog day, visiting from SITS. What a wonderful post! I don't have children, but my cousins and friends do. They are very concerned about their children using the Internet and I certainly agree that there's reason for the concern. I'll have to share your post with them.

This is a brilliant idea; more social networking sites should step up with security. We had a case today in the UK of a 12yr old girl who met her online friend (turned out to be a 41yr old perv), got abducted but luckily was found in France while trying to catch a plane to madrid. The thought of it makes me cringe.

I'm too late for the contest, but I wanted to say that this seems really cool, and there are lots of scary people on-line...I don't get some of those people who try to friend me on facebook without knowing who I am!

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